For months now, Joe Biden’s poll numbers have been declining steadily. For the first time since taking office, his RealClearPolitics average has him in the negative on job approval.
That was bad enough for him, but two new polls show that Biden’s approval rating has taken a huge hit since his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey has Biden’s approval at 44 percent and his disapproval at 55 percent—a net approval of -11 percent. But these figures include “26% who Strongly Approve of the job Biden is doing and 47% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21.”
The next survey, the latest USA Today/Suffolk University Poll, has Biden’s approval at 41 percent and his disapproval at 55 percent—a net approval of -14 percent—a huge drop for him. Despite the Biden administration desperately trying to make the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan indistinguishable from the way it was done, Americans aren’t buying it. Americans overwhelmingly support pulling out our troops (53 percent to 38 percent), but 62 percent disapprove of how he handled it.
I can’t imagine anyone who would approve of how Biden withdrew from Afghanistan. Who exactly would approve of leaving American citizens and U.S. military weapons and aircraft behind?
Both of the aforementioned polls were conducted from August 19-23.
The latest Hill-HarrisX poll shows Biden’s approval down six points, but still above water at 49% approval and 43% disapproval—a net approval of +6 percent. His approval was 55 percent in early August. While this poll is the outlier of recent polls, it still shows that Biden’s support is declining rapidly. After months of the media protecting him from bad publicity over the border crisis, inflation, and his stalled vaccination efforts, the addition of Afghanistan to the list of Biden’s failures appears to have been too much for the adoring media to cover with rose-colored glasses.
“Biden surrendered Afghanistan to terrorists and left thousands of Americans for dead by pulling out the military before our citizens,” Donald Trump said in a statement. “Now we are learning that out of the 26,000 people who have been evacuated, only 4,000 are Americans.”
Trump was referring to a report from Politico national security reporter Alex Ward noting that of the 26,582 people who have been evacuated, only 4,407 are American citizens, according to a leaked State Department cable with evacuation numbers.
The Biden administration has avoided specific numbers in public. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby would only acknowledge that “several thousand” had been evacuated so far. However, he failed to mention that Americans represent less than 20 percent of those our military has evacuated.
It is unclear how many American citizens remain in the country, as the Biden administration seems unaware of the actual number. Despite this, they insist that no Americans have been killed in the chaos, though it’s unclear how such a disorganized administration can know that.
But Biden’s troubles are likely just beginning. I’m sure he is hoping that evacuation efforts will stop the bleeding. Still, it seems highly unlikely that U.S. troops will evacuate all American citizens before August 31, the deadline for pulling out of the country completely. After that date, any Americans left behind will certainly become hostages of the Taliban and result in continued negative coverage of Afghanistan and more bad polls for the man who ran for president as the competent option.
